Been a long day. Think I am going to crack a Heineken and watch the idiot box.
Here’s a question- is there any reason I shouldn’t throw dog shit in the compost pile? Health reasons, that is.
Also, man were you all right about this worthless POS. Handle falls off all the time, lid never sealed so fruit flies pop up. Worthless. I should have figured- nothing quite says “Die you pretentious yuppie scum” like a ceramic indoor compost container.
RAD
Tupperware works great and seals in the smell.
mr. whipple
Dood, no waste, human, dog, cat or otherwise, ever goes into a compost bin/pile.
Mary G
I think compost piles don’t get hot enough to destroy the intestinal bacteria in the poop.
HyperIon
what mr. whipple said.
it takes very high heat to kill the bad stuff and your compost pile never gets close to that temperature.
General Stuck
There is very little addition of nutrients from dog shit. All it will do is stink to the high heavens and your plants will smell the same and won’t grow any better.
BR
Our compost bin is a generic big coffee tin. Just bought some at target for $5, saved the coffee to use to keep smells down.
John O
That post really made me laugh hard, John!
And I just skim your gardening posts.
mr. whipple
@HyperIon:
Mr. Whipple knows poop.
General Stuck
@mr. whipple:
Impressive.
debit
Cole, have you learned nothing? Feces doesn’t go in the compost bin, it gets a front row seat at the White House Briefing Room.
@thread: I made the best chicken tonight; just dredged breasts in an egg wash, then coated in bread crumbs, added pepper, then baked at 350 for 45 minutes. Ate with some fresh tomatoes and sourdough. YUM. I would have taken a pic, in the style of jeffreyw, but I eated it all.
HyperIon
Since this is an open thread, I’ll ask about a website feature that has been bothering me….
There used to be a “open links in a separate window” thingy (on the right side IIRC) but I do not see it now. Am I blind? If not, do you intend to add it back at sometime.
I found it useful because sometimes hitting the back arrow to return to B-J from another site is very slow.
MTmofo
Dog shit fosters mold growth. Let a turd stay on the lawn for a few days, you’ll see.
debit
@HyperIon: Right click on the link and either open in new tab or open in new window. It’s just one extra click.
Southern Beale
…is there any reason I shouldn’t throw dog shit in the compost pile?
Umm .. yeah. It’s shit.
Omnes Omnibus
Does anyone know of a good pub in Cambridge MA? Madame Omnibus is there with fellow academics and is supposed to suggest a place for them to get a drink or two. My help was sought; now your help is sought.
Lori Flynn
A biodigester will do it. Input poop, water, and other waste material, and output is clean fertilizer sans pathogens. Anaerobic bacteria digest the waste. As a bonus, you also capture methane, which is a greenhouse gas about 20 times worse than C02. You can use the methane to cook with (like propane, but not under pressure). When you burn it during cooking, water and C02 result.
If you had a cow or a pig, the poop would result in a lot more cooking fuel – biodigesters are especially great solutions for sanitation and cooking fuel for family farms in developing countries.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Speaking of PsOS: Larry King has Dame Sally Quinn discussing Chelsea Clinton’s wedding.
I just can’t believe his ratings tanked.
henqiguai
Given that dogs are essentially carnivores, that nice niffty commercial 100% cereal-based dog food notwithstanding, the gut fauna of any carnivore (or omnivore for that matter, like humans) is anathema to human health. And as others have pointed out, the ole backyard compost pile, topping out at somewhere around 150°, is just not hot enough to kill those little buggers.
Poopyman
@mr. whipple:
As someone else who knows poop (believe me, I do), Mr. Whipple is absolutely right.
No shit in the compost. And if you take it out every day, just about any lidded container works fine as a collector. We here at Poopy Manor prefer a stainless steel version. I think I got it from Lee Valley.
beltane
I never put dog or cat poop into the compost pile. On a related note, a large, commercial composting operation near me composts just about anything that is not inorganic. When a barn fire killed 90 cows, they even composted the remains.
Poopyman
Now, horseshit or cow shit or chickenshit works great, as long as you’ve let it age 6 months or a year before using. Composting with LOTS of carbon (leaves, clippings) speeds things along greatly.
But no dog shit.
(I like how my spellchecker objects to “dogshit”, but finds “dog shit” to be just fine.)
demimondian
@Lori Flynn: True, but retail scale biodigesters don’t work. You need a certain volume of waste to create a sustained reaction.
And, as anyone who lives in Boca Raton will tell you…they -don’t smell very good- smell *great* in downtown Boca!
Litlebritdifrnt
@MTmofo:
Actually I don’t have a problem with dog shit on the lawn, cause I don’t use any kind of cides I have a healthy population of carrion/dung beetles that burrow up from underground, gather up the dog shit, and take it to their burrows. Not only are they beautiful (emerald green irridecent bodies) but they create air holes in the lawn, and take the poo downstairs and turn it into fertilizer. It is a win win. I would be surprised if a pile of recently deposited dog poo lasted 24 hours in my yard. My beetles are that good. Just as an aside, Butterflies find dog poo a vital source of nutrients just before they are getting ready to mate. (gross I know but apparently the male gains vital vitamins and minerals from the poo that he will need to mate) if they can get to it before the beetles that is. How is it that you peeps don’t know about how beneficial dog poo is?
g-rant
Try this.
Svensker
No omnivore poop in the composter. Bad germs don’t get killed.
Tupperware or similar works great for the kitchen waste.
Had grilled steak (not POS “london broil” like our budget is usually geared to but real steak, yum) with fresh local corn, fresh local zukes (since dang but dead groundhogs eated ours) and our own tomatoes with our own basil for dinner. Unbelievable.
Also, too, my microwave caught on fire. Not the stuff inside that I was nuking but the microwave itself — apparently a short and then the plastic started actually burning with actual flames. Fortunately I was in the next room and heard a weird noise. If I had gone upstairs or outside and not caught it right away….shudder.
Comrade Mary
@debit:
Ooh, yes yes yes! But if you want near-instant gratification, you can cut the chicken into smaller pieces and pan fry with a little oil in a non-stick pan.
Occasionally I get fancy — use hot spice of some sort and/or garlic in the milk or egg wash, and add freshly grated Parmesan and dry parsley to the bread crumbs — but the basics work, too. I have talked myself out of Popeye’s TWICE in the past week by just doing the quick breaded faux-fry.
D-Chance.
RIP, Bill Cosby. I think. Maybe not. I saw it on the internet… but CNN had someone on who claimed to have firsthand knowledge that it wasn’t true, so who knows?
gex
Here’s a little food for thought:
http://gods4suckers.net/archives/2010/06/05/bradlee-dean-friends-an-american-horror-story/
demimondian
@Litlebritdifrnt: Most of us live rather north of you, and don’t have dung beetles in our lawns?
WereBear
Bury the poo. Compost the food. You don’t compost the food which has already kinda been composted. Don’t drink the civet coffee.
In breaking news, share my joy. I’m supposed to get a car tomorrow!
It’s a 2010 Ford Focus. Normally I wouldn’t consider a new car; I hate the thought of the depreciation that happens as soon as it leaves the lot. However, in this case, Ford is paying me three thousand dollars to not care.
I can do that.
It’s a crazy world, all right. Two weeks ago, I was worried about being found in the snow after the spring thaw, still carrying coffee and cat food on my way back from the store. Now, thanks to the wonders of our financial system, I am being paid money to have a better car than I dreamed of getting.
And yeah, there’s a car payment. But we’ve just been through three vehicles who, when they didn’t have payments, substituted random, unpredictable, huge repair bills instead.
Change is good.
Comrade Mary
@D-Chance.: Not true, apparently.
gex
@gex: Sorry for the offensive domain name – not my doing.
pat
@Comrade Mary:
Yes to both versions of chicken; or try using Italian seasoning or Italian seasoned bread crumbs.
Litlebritdifrnt
@demimondian: I thought dung beetles were fairly universal, you know occuring wherever there was dung. The carion beetles take care of the wasted cat food at the front door and the dung beetles take care of the dog poo in the back. It just never occurred to me that they would not be wherever there was food. A bit like vultures, they are all over right?
Betsy
@Omnes Omnibus:
Oooh oooh me me!!!
My favorite is the Cellar Bar on Mass Ave between Harvard and Central Squares. For fancy, expensive cocktails that are also the best you’ll ever have, try the bar at Craigie on Main (also in Central Square).
A lot of people love the Plow and Stars, but I haven’t been there.
Grafton St. and Daedalus around Harvard are both good for a generic-but-nice upscale lounge.
Svensker
@WereBear:
That is wonderful — congrats! The Focus is a really good car, too. How/why is Ford paying you, if you don’t mind my asking.
Betsy
@Omnes Omnibus:
Oh and I forgot my new favorite: Russell House Tavern, in Harvard Sq. Super cheap house wines by the glass, good beer, good food.
Glen Tomkins
Carnivore poop
Others have already gone over the health risks, so I won’t go into that. But my understanding, and please correct me if wrong, as I’m no farmer, is that carnivore poop isn’t even a good fertilizer, even if it weren’t fecal coliform risky.
While herbivore dung was for a long time our mainstay as a crop fertilizer, carnivore poop is no good in that role, both because it lacks needed nutrients, and because it’s too acidic. I’ve seen lawns destroyed by even mid-size dogs when their owners decide to let their poop just sit where it falls and “fertilize” in place, and I’m told the same acidity will wreck even the healthy components of a compost heap.
Humans, until quite recently, were also about 99% vegetarian. Meat’s a luxury. I guess that our current massive overindulgence in this luxury is one reason that we no longer use “night soil” as fertilizer either, again aside from the fecal coliform problem. We’ve turned into damn carnivores!
We also used to burn human and large herbivore dung as fuel, but here again, carnivore dung is worthless, a net eater of fuel. When I lived in HI, this little old lady out behind our place used to get rid of her dog’s poop by burning it, and she had to use massive amounts of lighter fluid to get the job done. The old-timers in the Army used to tell me (I’m an old-timer myself now, and all these folks are long gone.) that when they had to burn their poop, at some isolated firebase in Vietnam, it too would require massive amounts of foogas.
They just don’t make shit like they used to back when we were mostly herbivores.
debit
@Comrade Mary:
Oh, damn, Parmesan. I gotta get more chicken.
Gina
I am experimenting with composting dog and cat poop. My reference is the Humanure Handbook – the older editions are available as free pdf downloads, or you can purchase the newest one. I found a big composting bin at Sam’s Club that I have everything in right now, seems to be working out fine, it doesn’t smell horrible unless we don’t cover the stuff up. I put kitchen and yard waste in as well. I expect it’ll take a while, per the book, and I’ll just use it for the ornamentals since who knows wtf chemicals are in the poop from all the heartworm preventives and flea/tick crap.
Comrade Mary
@debit: Oh, damn, I just thawed and ate some of the frozen nuggets I thought I had safely stored in the freezer.
STOP POSTING ABOUT TASTY FOOD, PEOPLE!
Cat Lady
@Omnes Omnibus:
River Gods or the Plough and Stars.
Both in Central Square.
apikoros
Rather than give my opinion and be shot down, let me give you the USDA’s opinion and you can all write angry letters to your congressman:
http://www.ak.nrcs.usda.gov/compost.html
Yes, you can compost dog waste. And any other form of waste. It’s not as simple as composting leaves, but it can be done with reasonable care. It may not be worth it for one dog, but John is up to two and a cat… I know how these things go (I’m *down* to three cats :-) I think he’ll have plenty of supply. As always, YMMV.
Lysana
@Glen Tomkins:
Oh, really? So how is it wooly mammoths are extinct? And our first tools were hunting equipment? And we domesticated hunting assistants before herd animals that were also useful for farming?
JGabriel
I’m nutpicking here, but this made me laugh:
Actually, yeah, it kind of is the point. Wingnut arguing and denial at its purest.
.
Nora Carrington
I’ll second Poopyman’s recommendation for the stainless composter. It’s got filters that keep the bugs out so fruit fly colonies can’t get started, and with a liner (need compostable bags, which does add to the expense), the lid fits tightly enough that the buggers can’t get in that way, either. Apologies in advance for the long url.
http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=stainless+compost+crock&cid=2972783191639102658&ei=iXZXTM-cO4PSjATfgcGgAg&sa=title&ved=0CAcQ8wIwADgA#p
Omnes Omnibus
@Betsy: Thanks. I passed the info along, but it seems that they are all going into Chinatown. They might do the pub thing tomorrow.
ETA: Thank you, Cat Lady.
MikeJ
@Cat Lady: I’ve only ever been in the Plough and Stars for the footie, but it was a good time.
debit
@Glen Tomkins: Horse manure burns great. Sometimes on its own. One summer the guy who boarded my horses sort of let his manure pile go to hell. He just kept throwing fresh crap on the old crap. And then August came, hot and dry and as I was walking past the manure pile, right next to the barn, I saw flames. Little blue flames dancing on the manure pile. We spent the next four hours hosing down the manure. The guy was suitably chagrined.
Josie
I love a man who can admit his mistakes (the ceramic compost container). As to adding dog poop to the compost pile, use that particular compost only on lawn and/or ornamentals, not the vegies, and you’ll be fine.
WereBear
@Svensker: Not at all; there’s a 3k instant rebate thing, because the Subaru had the grace to expire at a time they want to get the leftover 2010s off the lot; they have 2011’s coming in September.
Thus, out of thin air, a down payment.
RedKitten
We’ve ordered a new stainless steel compost bucket as well. We were using a plastic one, but it would just absorb smells and get really nasty. So for now, it’s the generic giant coffee can until the new bin arrives.
Back to work tomorrow. There’s nothing worse than being sick over a long weekend. I only started feeling human again today, of course.
Henry
@RedKitten: I found that “biobags” (compostable plastic bags) have made my compost situation much more pleasant (much less smell). I found them at whole foods, though you can get them for cheaper online.
On the other hand, now I wonder how much of the good i’m doing by composting is being reversed by the consumption of those bags (producing, transporting, packaging, etc.). Sigh.
debit
BTW, elmo, how goes the fundraiser for Lugnut?
Disclaimer: This has been a blatant hint for both an update on the pup and for a repost of the donation link.
Seriously, I’d love to hear how he’s doing.
@Henry: I have the same mixed feelings. I buy the biodegradable ones for Chloe’s poop bags, because I can’t bear the idea of throwing away actual plastic, but even so…
demimondian
@Litlebritdifrnt: Surprisingly, no. All biomes have various dung gathering insects, but the super-efficient dung beetles are not present everywhere.
Also, too, dung beetles turn out to be pretty selective in their shit-eating habits — cow dung, for instance, isn’t processed by any of the indigenous beetles in North America.
apikoros
Oh, and as for just putting dog poop on an unmeasured pile, the threat is mostly from parasites. USDA mentions roundworms, but as I remember pinworms are also a problem (tho I could be wrong on that, I know humans are susceptible, I *think* dogs are as well). Interestingly, the biggest threat is walking on contaminated earth and somehow transferring the soil from foot to mouth. Most parasites need to be swallowed.
Gut bacteria are not a threat, they live in the gut by design and most bacterial pathogens are dead within 48 hours of exit (too cold, not wet enough, wrong PH, etc. etc.). Virii are dead within a couple hours of exit (host cell dies and the virus dies as well).
blogbytom
Cole, no fresh dogshit in the compost. Because.
And, Cole: Heineken? Say it ain’t so.
Betsy
@Cat Lady:
Oooh, and I am burning with shame that I misspelled the Plough and Stars. My only excuse is that I just got back from a lovely evening out with a friend at one of Cambridge’s other fine establishments, and am somewhat under the influence.
Cat Lady
@Betsy:
Cheers! Which fine establishment? I get into Cambridge quite a bit cuz both daughters live in East Cambridge so we’re always on the prowl for places to go.
SIA
We’re using a hard plastic Tidy Cats bin with lid & handle for our compost. It works great and even when almost full, it contains the odors very well.
Violet
Late to the party, but go with the Tupperware for the compost. Told ya that the first time. Stick it under the sink and it won’t mess with your pretty counter. Or, buy a fashionable Tupperware container that would look good on the counter.
Anne Laurie
Another option for dog waste: Doggie Dooleys . Amazon is your friend…
General Stuck
Since we are without pics of furry critters, here is a fresh off the presses pic of Charlie after a bath. It had been a couple of weeks since the last one and he was getting quite ripe.
MTmofo
@Litlebritdifrnt:
I think that scenario is great, wonderful, natural, etc. My point was strictly about the inadvisability of including dogshit in a compost pile, notwithstanding other process intensive options for treating the waste that others mentioned.
Cat Lady
@General Stuck:
He has such a gorgeous coat.
Alice Blue
This won’t mean anything to anyone except aging baby boomers like me, but I just found out Mitch Miller died today. My family followed the bouncing ball and sang along with Mitch every week.
JGabriel
@Alice Blue: There’s a joke somewhere in there about a “dead cat bounce”, but I’m failing to find it.
.
hamletta
@Alice Blue: I didn’t know he was still alive! Next you’ll tell me Ray Conniff is still around1
Jager
@Lori Flynn:
I’ll keep that in mind when I move to my Colorado “Last Stand” location…pigs, cows, goats and chickens providing all the gas I need to radiant heat our polished concrete floors and to cook their older relatives. Any idea how much ammo I’ll need to take to fight off the Christians who aren’t raptured up? I’m getting a Barrett 50 cal sniper rifle, a 307, a couple of pump shotguns, I’m going to modify an M-16 to full auto and pick up a couple of 9mm handguns, anyone know where I can take a course on how to build IEDs?
(If any Wolverines are reading this stay the fuck away from me, I won’t help you! )
Steeplejack
@HyperIon:
I don’t remember that BJ-specific feature, but what debit said: you can always right-click on a link at Balloon Juice and then pick the option from the context menu to open the target in a new tab or window. Works in Firefox, Opera and recent versions of IE.
You can read the off-site stuff, close that tab or window and be right back where you want at Balloon Juice.
SiubhanDuinne
@Alice Blue #66: I had a little Brush With Fame in 1965 when I bought Mitch Miller a slice of cantaloupe. Don’t remember why; it seems an incredibly odd thing to have done, but I did. RIP.
Steeplejack
@debit:
Lugnut link.
ETA: WordPress apparently ate my previous comment.
slag
OK. No to the dog poop. What about used tissues? Still no?
demimondian
@Jager: All the true Christians will be Hoovered…I mean, raptured…up. Us fake Christians are, for the most part, the peaceful ones. You won’t need much to take us all out.
Jager
@demimondian:
You guys can come for Sunday dinner, the chicken may be old and tough, but I’m sure we’ll still have a good time, bring your homemade liqour. My worry is if they don’t get “hoovered up”, they’ll really be pissed.
Bill Gates
Essentially, you NEVER want to put any proteins in your compost pile. This includes bones, meat scraps, animal fats, and protein based poo from carnivores/omnivores, i.e. dogs & cats. Poo from herbivores is fine, i.e. horse & steer manure. If you do, then it goes from a compost pile to a garbage pile and then you have a sanitation problem that will attract rats & other vermin.
DickSpudCouchPotatoDetective
Okay, I googled this question
“Can pet feces be composted”
and the very first Google return said this:
Not for compost to be used on food crops or plants.
Sort of what you would expect them to say. Unless you want to eat food fertilized with dog shit. Of course, I don’t live in West Virginia, what the fuck do I know. Maybe there is a different standard there.
What really interests me is why someone would post such a question on a blog when it would be FASTER AND EASIER to just google the information yourself in the first place?
Or is the move to turn this into a version of Facebook now complete?
Jesus.
asiangrrlMN
@HyperIon: I just hold down control and then click the link (Google Chrome). I almost never open the link in the same window unless I’m really lazy.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: This is why I haz Firefox and tabs. Me likey tabs. I utilize them often.
SciVo
@DickSpudCouchPotatoDetective: I actually found this very interesting and informative. Also disturbing, with the alternating comments about food and feces. But that’s the Internet, isn’t it? Deliciously shitty.
april
I put food scraps in a zip lock bag in the freezer, when the bag is full-I compost it. Mess free & fewer trips to the bin.
jon
I’d avoid the poop, but pee seems okay.
Montanareddog
Heineken? Yuk! Seems like Cole’s open thread is about dog shit and cat’s piss.
I live in the Netherlands and only drink Heineken if the bar sells nothing else and there is no other bar in the neighbourhood and I am about to expire from thirst, and it’s winter and there is no R in the month.
I will admit that it is more drinkable in the States because it is served so damn chilled that you don’t notice (as much) the awful taste and the oleaginous texture.
But regardless of where you drink it, it is one of those beers where, even after just a couple, I can feel slightly nauseous the next morning.
Rant over – I shall be cracking open a Gulpener when I get home this evening
hidflect
@Svensker:
I hear yah. I nearly went to bed but decided to make one more post a while back. The dust had accumulated in an upturned spot lamp and caught ablaze. I watched it for 30 seconds building into a noxious blaze before pulling the plug and dowsing it with scotch and water (from my glass). I’d be statistic now if it wasn’t for my blogging addiction.
shaun
You should be throwing Heineken in the compost pile. There are many better beers for the same price.
Chinn Romney
@Omnes Omnibus:
Oh yeah. Chose your square. I’m partial to Inman and there are a dozen to pick from. Can’t go wrong with Atwoods Tavern.
Halfway between Harvard and Central you’ve got the Plough and Stars, an institution. And a couple doors down there’s the People’s Republic, replete with all sorts of Soviet War and Political paraphernalia.
In Porter go with the Toad. Or amble over to Davis Square, it’s in Somerville, but lots to pick from there, start with the Burren.
Betsy
@Chinn Romney:
I like Bukowski’s in Inman too.
@Cat Lady:
This is a little late, don’t know if you’ll see it, but we were having the veggie Cubanos at Chez Henri (and only because I got the groupon for it! Normally CH is out of my price range).
Joy
Unless your dogs are on a strict vegetarian diet, you should not throw anything with meat products (including poop) into your compost pile. Horse manure can be used because they eat grains and vegetables.
Cat Lady
@Betsy:
Thanks- I’ve heard great things about Chez Henri, and it’s on my short list of places to check out soon. Have you been to Oleana’s? The meze starters are awesome.
Betsy
@Cat Lady:
Only once, for my birthday, several years ago. It was fabulous!!
Betsy
@Cat Lady:
p.s. If you go to Chez Henri, I recommend sitting at the bar, rather than the main restaurant, if you can get a seat. They don’t let you order off the bar menu in the restaurant, so you can’t get the Cuban sandwich. But you can order off the regular menu in the bar, so it’s the best of both worlds.
Cat Lady
@Betsy:
Good to know. Thanks. If you like seafood, you should try eating at any of the Portuguese restaurants on Cambridge Street if you haven’t already, and if you want GREAT fresh fish, go see Carl at the New Deal. Also.
Poopyman
@shaun:
No! Shitty beer is for killing slugs. Just leave a dish buried in the dirt around the plants they’ve been eating. Come back later and you’ll find a bunch of drowned slugs.
Don’t know if that improves the taste of the beer, though.
Glen Tomkins
@Lysana: I would be the first to concede that we don’t have enough hard, quantitative, data on the eating habits of any group of humans until the past few decades, to be able to give any quantitative breakdown of meat vs vegetables in their diets. Quoting a pseudo-exact figure like 99% was an offhand way of conceding that. Perhaps I should have made it 98.7345% to make the point clearer.
Another thing that I would be perfectly willing to concede is that we are clearly omnivores. We are built to be able to take advantage of a very wide range of foodstuffs (we probably even digest some of the cellulose in our diets). And clearly that sacrifice of the advantages of specialization in order to be able to take in a wide range of foodstuffs, means that we are designed to be highly opportunistic in taking advantage of local circumstances. Yes, sometimes that meant that tiny bands of humans would live off niches in the environment, like mammoth herds, or like the oyster beds of some coastal sites, that allowed a diet as high in meat as is standard everywhere in the first world today.
But none of that overrides the fundamental fact that for almost all of our history and pre-history, almost all humans have lived on the edge of starvation, as population increased to come in line with the amount of food available. And that edge condition dictated the bare minimum of meat consumption consistent with sustaining life, because producing meat is much less efficient than producing the feed that would have gone for livestock, but which the humans can divert to their own direct consumption, and make great gains in efficiency by cutting out the meat middleman. In the story of the Prodigal, the elder son is presented as being quite right in pointing out, even in the case of what is clearly supposed to be a rich family for the day, that it is sheer, extravagant, unheard-of folly to slay a fatted calf for dinner.
The same principle applies to the pre-agricultural state. In hunter-gathering societies there is admittedly wider local variation in exactly where the meat-to-vegetable/hunting-to-gathering ratio equilibrates, but in most locales that comes down heavily on the side of gathering plant material as the main, and most consistent, source of food. Meat is very desirable, but much harder and less reliable to get, unless you happen to live next to a herd-in-residence of mammoths and a handy cliff to drive them over, or an oyster bed.
So, sure, meat is a highly concentrated source of just about everything we need in our diet. If it is readily available, as today everywhere in the first world, and as in our pre-history, only in scattered niches, it will tend to dominate consumption. But if these scattered niches had been the rule rather than the very rare exception, if mammoth herds and handy cliffs to drive them over had been available everywhere and forever, we would have evolved into pure carnivores. We didn’t.
tim
About the ceramic compost container: I have that exact same brand/style container, have been using it nonstop for nine months, and it works like a charm. I just went into the kitchen and tried to pull the handle off of it, and couldn’t do it. What the hell are you doing, Cole, swinging it over your head as you walk out to the composter? :D
Mine is white, and what I like abou it is that I can leave it out on the kitchen counter and it looks nice rather than gross, as would some metal can or tupperware thing, which I would then have to keep under the sink with the attendant rooting around below each time I want to toss some scraps in. With the ceramic container kept right by the sink, it’s simple.
Also, too, and in addition, I have only had fruit flies a couple of times, and that just meant it was past time for a run to the composter. No big deal.
Atreju
Best thing for a kitchen fly problem: pitcher plants. Venus fly traps are fun, but its about volume. Also to add to the dog pile on composting pet shit: use a separate pile. Or better yet, dig a hole, put some sort of lid/door over it, insert dog shit, and forget about it.